His Until Midnight

by Nikki Logan

  Stretch their legs. As if they’d just had a busy afternoon at their desks. He studied her for signs of weirdness—more than the usual amount—but found none. Her eyes were clear and untroubled.

  ‘You’re actually hungry?’ Oh, my God, she actually was.

  Audrey Devaney might just be the perfect woman.

  ‘Ravenous,’ she purred. “That was quite a workout.’

  No wonder he adored her. ‘You want to be served up here?’

  A hint of shadow crossed her expression. ‘No. Let’s go back downstairs.’ But then she sagged and her warm lips fell against the cooling sweat of his shoulder. ‘In just a minute or two.’

  * * *

  She was pretty hungry but, more than anything, Audrey wanted to walk back into this public restaurant with Oliver.

  With Oliver.

  Just for the sheer pleasure of doing it. Nothing but her dress had changed for the restaurant patrons or the staff because most of them probably assumed she and Oliver were already sleeping together. But she’d changed. She would know what it was like to have the best sex of her life with a man like Oliver Harmer, right over their very heads, and then casually stroll back in for the next course.

  It was more decadent a sensation than if they’d served her palate cleanser smeared on Oliver’s naked torso.

  She stumbled over that image slightly and the fingers curled around hers tightened.

  ‘Okay?’

  She threw her gratitude sideways on a breathy acknowledgement. Lord, when had she become so...Marilyn Monroe?

  She glanced awkwardly to the other tables for a half-heartbeat. Did she look like a woman who was quite accustomed to having exquisite sex between courses? Could she look like that? And it was, hands down, the best sex she’d ever had. With her husband. With anyone else. Even on her own. Her body was still swollen and sensitive and really, really pleased with itself.

  What if she looked as smug as she felt?

  ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’

  ‘I don’t know what the etiquette is,’ she admitted, dragging her focus back to their private little corner by the dragonflies as they approached. Were the insects this vivid and lively before or was everything just super-sensory right now?

  ‘To what?’

  ‘To walking into a room after our...bonus course.’

  His chuckle eased a little of her nerves. ‘I don’t think there are any rules for that. You’re going to have to wing it.’

  ‘I feel—’ transformed ‘—conspicuous.’

  ‘If people are looking at you it’s because of the dress, Audrey.’

  Right. Not some tattoo on her forehead that said, ‘Guess where she’s just had her mouth.’

  She sank, on instinct, towards her comfortable sofa and Oliver tugged on their still-entwined fingers as he kept moving.

  Oh. Together.

  How odd that—despite everything they’d done with each other and been to each other over the past hours—it was this that felt taboo. Like crossing over to the dark side. She joined Oliver on his sofa, facing the other way for the first time in five years, while he scanned her for the first sign of trouble.

  She must look as if she was ready to bolt from the room.

  She stretched, cat-like, back into his sofa. ‘This is quite comfortable, too.’

  ‘I’ve always liked it.’

  Her bottom wriggle dug her a little deeper. ‘I think you had the better end of the deal, actually.’

  ‘I would definitely say so, today.’

  Sweet.

  Terrifying...but sweet.

  Oliver did little more than flick his chin at a passing server and the man reappeared a moment later with two glasses of chilled white wine. Audrey smiled her thanks before sweeping her glass up and turning her attention again to the busy dragonflies in the tank that usually sat behind her, and, through its glass sides, the bustling kitchen on the far side of the restaurant.

  ‘I always thought you were terribly sophisticated, knowing the timing of everything in a Michelin-starred restaurant,’ she murmured. ‘But you were cheating. You can see them coming.’

  ‘It seems it’s a night for exposing secrets.’

  That brought her eyes back to his. ‘Yes indeed.’

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

  It.

  ‘I don’t want to ruin it.’ Or jinx it. ‘But I don’t want you to think I’m avoiding conversation, either.’

  ‘Would you like to talk about something else?’

  Desperately. ‘What?’

  He cupped his wine and leaned back into the corner of the sofa more comfortably. ‘Tell me about the Testore.’

  The instruments she hunted were certainly something she could get excited about. And talk about until his ears bled. ‘What would you like to know?’

  ‘How was it stolen?’

  ‘Directly from the cabin of a commercial airline between Helsinki and Madrid, while the owner used the washrooms.’

  ‘In front of a plane full of people?’

  ‘The cabin was darkened. But Testores get their own seat when they fly so it’s unusual that no one saw it being removed. Someone would have had to lean right over into the window seat.’

  ‘Wow, it’s that valuable? How did they get it off the plane without being seen?’

  ‘No one knows. We have to assume one of the ground crew was paid off. The plane’s cabin security picked up a shadow lingering by the seats and taking it but it was too dark to identify even gender. And short of paying for a seat for the instrument and one for a bodyguard I’m not sure what the owner could have done differently. She had to pee. They searched the plane top to bottom.’

  The public areas, anyway.

  ‘So how did you begin tracking it down?’

  This was what she did. This was what she loved. It wasn’t hard to relax and bore Oliver senseless with the details of her hunt for the cello.

  Except that he didn’t bore easily, clearly. Forty minutes later he was still engaged and asking questions. She’d kicked off her shoes again and tucked her feet up under her, feeling very much the Chinese waif in her silken sheath, helping herself to finger-sized portions of the crocodile and watermelon that was course number seven.

  ‘Can you talk about all of this? Legally?’ Oliver queried.

  ‘I haven’t told you anything confidential. It’s all process.’ She smiled. ‘Plus I think I can trust you.’

  His eyes refocused sharply, as if he had something to say about that, but then he released her from his fixed gaze and reached, instead, to trace the line of her arm with a knuckle. ‘Your patience amazes me. And that you’re so close to finding it when you started with practically nothing.’

  Oh, he had no idea how patient she could be. Just look how long she’d endured her feelings for him. Or how long she could endure his tantalising touch before shattering.

  Apparently.

  ‘It’s taken all year but we’re just one step behind them now. The plan is to get ahead and then we have them. The authorities just have to wait for them to deliver it up.’

  ‘Why don’t these people just take it and go to ground for a decade? Put it in a basement somewhere? Hoard it?’

  ‘Criminals aren’t that patient for their money and, besides, their industry is full of loose lips. You steal something like a Testore and don’t keep it moving and one of your colleagues is just as likely to steal it out from under you.’

  ‘I really don’t see the point.’

  ‘Neither do I,’ she admitted. ‘Why have lovely things if you never see them?’

  ‘I’m surprised the bad guys haven’t tried to buy you off.’

  ‘Oh, they’ve tried.’ She smiled. ‘My sense of natural justice is just too strong. And I view the instruments a bit like children. Innocent victims. Stolen. Abused. All they want to do is go home to the person that loves and values them and keeps them safe and fulfils their potential.’

  Because wasn’t that what life was all about? Ful
filling your potential.

  The brown in his eyes suddenly seemed more prominent. And chocolaty. And much closer. Which one of them had moved so subtly? Or had they both just gravitated naturally together?

  ‘Want to hear something dumb?’ he murmured.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘That’s how I feel about the companies I buy.’

  She flicked an eyebrow. ‘The near-crippled companies you get for a song, you mean?’

  He smiled. ‘They’re innocent victims, too. In the hands of people that don’t value them and don’t understand how to make them strong.’

  ‘And you do?’

  ‘I’m like you—a facilitator. I have the expertise to recognise the signs of a flailing business and I gather them up, strengthen them and get them to the people who can give them a future.’

  ‘That’s a very anthropomorphic belief.’

  ‘Says the woman who thinks of a cello like a trafficked child.’

  She smiled. He was right. ‘You don’t ever break them up?’

  ‘Not unless they’re already falling to pieces.’

  That was her greatest fear. Finding an instrument that someone took to with a sledgehammer rather than relinquish. Because some people were just like that: if they couldn’t have it, no one would.

  ‘I’m guessing that the people you buy them from don’t see it that way.’

  He shrugged. ‘Hey, they’re the ones selling. No one’s forcing them.’

  ‘I guess I hadn’t realised how similar our jobs are. Though I get the feeling yours has a lot more facets.’ Like a diamond. It was certainly worth a whole heap more.

  Oliver studied her as he finished the last of the watermelon. ‘That wasn’t so bad, was it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Having a conversation.’

  ‘We’ve had lots of conversations.’

  ‘Yet somehow that feels like our first.’

  It did have that exciting hum about it. ‘I miss conversation.’

  ‘Blake’s been gone a while.’

  ‘I never really talked with him. Not like this.’ Not like Oliver. ‘So it’s been a couple of years.’

  ‘Did you move to Antarctica when I wasn’t looking? What about your friends?’

  ‘Of course I have friends. And we talk a lot, but they’ve all known me forever and so our conversation tends to be about...you know...stuff. Mutual friends. Work. Dramas. Clothes.’

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘That’s a lot!’ But those steady hazel eyes filled her with confidence. ‘I’m not... I don’t share much. Often.’ And she could never talk about Oliver. To anyone.

  ‘You share with me.’

  ‘Once a year. Like cramming.’ Did that even count?

  Nothing changed in his expression yet everything did. He studied her, sideways, and then reached out to drag soft knuckles across the back of her hand. ‘You call me up whenever you want. I’d love to talk to you more often. Or email.’

  The cold, hard wash of reality welled up around her.

  Right. Because she was leaving in the morning. As she always did. Flying seven thousand kilometres in one direction while he flew twelve hundred in the other. Back to their respective lives.

  Back to reality. With a phone plan.

  ‘Maybe I will.’

  Or maybe she’d chalk tonight up to a fantastic one-night stand and run a million miles from these feelings. That could work.

  A murmuring behind them drew Oliver’s gaze.

  ‘Hey, it’s starting.’

  No need to ask what ‘it’ was. Her favourite part of December twentieth. Her favourite part of Christmas. Oliver pulled her to her feet and she padded, barefoot, on the luxury carpet to the enormous window facing Victoria Harbour. Below them Hong Kong’s nightly light show prepared to commence.

  Both sides of the harbour lit up like a Christmas tree and pulsed with the commencement of music that the Qīngtíng suddenly piped through their sound system. Massive lighting arrays, specially installed on every building the length of both sides of the waterfront, began to strobe and dance. It wasn’t intended to be a Christmas show but, to Audrey, it couldn’t be more so if it were set to carols. She couldn’t see a light show anywhere without thinking about this city.

  This man.

  Oliver slipped her in front of him between the window and the warmth of his body and looped his arms across her front, and she knew this was the light show she’d be remembering on her deathbed.

  Emotion choked her breathing as she struggled to keep the rise and fall of her chest carefully regulated. Giving nothing away. The beautiful lights, the beautiful night, the beautiful man. All wrapped around her in a sensory overload. Wasn’t this what she’d wanted her whole life? Even during her marriage?

  Belonging.

  Never mind that it was only temporary belonging; she’d take what she could get.

  ‘I missed this so much last year,’ she breathed.

  His low words rumbled against her back. ‘I missed you.’

  The press of her cheek into his arm was a silent apology.

  ‘Let’s just focus on tonight.’

  She wasn’t going to waste their precious time dwelling on the past or dreaming of endless combinations of futures. She had Oliver right here, right now; something she never could have imagined.

  And she was taking it. While she could.

  ‘What time does Qīngtíng close?’

  His body tensed behind her. ‘Got a flight to catch?’

  She turned her head, just slightly—away from the light show, away from the other patrons, back towards him. ‘I want to be alone with you.’

  ‘We can go back upstairs.’

  She took a breath. Took a chance. ‘No, I want to be alone, here.’

  Okay, that was definitely tension radiating on the slow hiss he released as a curse.

  Too much? Had she crossed some kind of he-man line? She turned back to the view as though that was all they’d been discussing. As though it were that meaningless. But every cell in her body geared for rejection and made her smile tight. ‘Or not.’

  Oliver curled forward, lips hard against her ear. ‘Don’t move.’

  And then he was gone, leaving her with only her own, puny arms to curl around her torso.

  Ugh. She was so ill equipped for seduction.

  And for taking a risk.

  It was only moments before he returned, assuming his previous position and tightening his hold as though he’d never been gone. So... Maybe okay, then? It wasn’t a total retreat on his part. The show went on, spectacular and epic, but all Audrey could think about was the press of Oliver’s hips against her bottom. His hard chest against her back and how that had felt pressing onto her front not too long ago.

  Light show? What light show?

  At last, she recognised the part of the music that heralded the end of the nightly extravaganza and she tuned in once again to the sounds around her, reluctant to abandon the warm envelope of sensory oblivion she’d shared with Oliver in the dark.

  Like insects scuttling away from sudden exposure, a swarm of staff whipped the restaurant’s dishes and themselves back behind closed doors as the lights gently rose. The maître d’ spoke quietly in turn to the six remaining couples and each of them collected up their things, curious acceptance on their faces, and within moments were gone.

  ‘Oliver—?’

  ‘Apparently your wish is my command.’

  Her mouth gaped in a very unladylike fashion. ‘Did you throw them out?’

  ‘A sudden and unfortunate failure in the kitchen and a full return voucher for each of them. I’m sure they’re thrilled.’

  ‘Considering they were nearly on their last course—’ and considering what Qīngtíng’s degustation cost ‘—I’m sure they are, too.’

  He led her back to his sofa.

  Ming-húa appeared with a full bottle of white wine, an elegant pitcher of iced water and a remote control and placed all three on the table before
murmuring, ‘Goodnight, Mr Harmer. Mrs Audrey.’

  And then he was gone back through the kitchen and out whatever back-of-house door the rest of the staff had discreetly exited through.

  She turned her amazement to him in the luminous glow of the dragonfly habitat.

  ‘Just like that?’

  ‘They’ll get it all cleaned up before the breakfast opening.’

  Uh-huh. Just like that. ‘Do you always get what you want?’

  ‘Mostly. I thought you wanted it, too.’

  ‘Wanting and getting aren’t usually quite that intrinsically linked in my world.’

  ‘Have you changed your mind?’

  ‘Well...not exactly...’ Although her breathless words were easier to own in the dark with the press of his body for motivation.

  He leaned back into the luxury sofa and threw her a knowing look. ‘You’re all talk, Devaney.’

  ‘I am not. I’m just thrown by the expedience with which that was...dealt with.’

  ‘Careful what you wish for, then, because you might get it.’

  Alone again.

  Audrey glanced around the stylish venue. Then at the door. Then at Oliver.

  His eyes narrowed. ‘What?’

  ‘I just need a minute...’

  She pushed again to her bare feet and strolled casually to the far side of the restaurant, and considered it before turning.

  ‘Lost something?’

  ‘I’m just seeing how the other half live.’

  She peered out of the glass. Their view was definitely better in the dragonfly corner. Although it was, of course, exactly the same. Except Oliver was part of her view over there.

  He chuckled and settled back to watch her. She hiked the sensuous fabric of her loaned dress up her legs slightly and then cantered—there was no other word for it—around the restaurant usually bustling with people.

  ‘You’re mad,’ he chuckled, struggling to keep his eyes off her bared legs.

  ‘No, I’m snoopy.’

  She stuck her head inside the servery window and checked out the glamorous kitchen. No food left out overnight but definitely a clean-up job for someone in the morning. An industrial dishwasher did its thing somewhere in the corner, humming and churning in the silence.

  On a final pass by his sofa, Oliver stretched up and snagged her around the waist, dragging her, like the prey of a funnel-web spider, down into the lair of his lap. Her squeal of protest was soaked up by the luxurious carpet and furnishings.